“Look Back”, “Bakuman”… When the manga reveals its backstage

• The manga

  Look Back

  comes out in bookstores on Wednesday at Kazé, it is the work of Tatsuki Fujimoto, author of

  Chainsaw Man

  and mangaka celebrated at the Angoulême festival.

• The story follows the meeting, rivalry, collaboration of two young designers, from the school newspaper to the essential manga pre-publication magazine.

• Bakuman

  ,

  Hitman

  ,

  Réimp'!

  … Other series have looked behind the scenes of manga, Japanese publishing and ultimately the same passion.

The manga is not just a comic strip format, but an art in its own right, an industrial art to use the established formula, which obeys a precise editorial process (competition, pre-publication, bound volumes, etc.) and irrigates the entire Japanese pop culture (adaptations, theme songs, derivative products, etc.).

No wonder, then, that manga and its behind-the-scenes are a subject that fascinates mangakas and readers.

Tatsuki Fujimoto, young prodigy and author of

and

, tackles it in the multi-award-winning one-shot

, in bookstores Wednesday at Kazé editions, a few days before the exhibition "Heroes of chaos" dedicated to him by the Angouleme Festival.

Look Back is available now in your bookstores 📚 pic.twitter.com/j9OmPYq0rT

— Kazé (@KazeFrance) March 9, 2022

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The power of fiction

Fujino is a gifted child, very confident in her drawing talent, until the day when she discovers in the school newspaper the pencil stroke of Kyômoto, a student with sickly shyness and recluse at home.

Their rivalry mixed with admiration will turn into friendship and collaboration… all the way to the top?

If

is autofiction and Fujimoto puts a lot of him in Fujino and Kyômoto, in their passion and priesthood, in the series

, a nod to

, it is ultimately more of a introspection on the power of fiction when tragedy strikes.

Inio Asano, one of the most important mangakas of his generation, also questions his profession and creation in the barely autobiographical story

chez Kana, where his alter ego is plunged into full doubt after the end of his last successful manga. .

What to draw now, a general public title as his publisher wants or a personal project that is close to his heart?

A mise en abyme more existential than professional.

To discover behind the scenes of the manga, the reference remains

(Kana) by Tsugumi Oba and Takeshi Obata, a scriptwriter and designer duo also at work on

and

.

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Mangakas, assistants, “tantô”… The different trades of manga

Over 20 volumes, they recount the slow rise of middle school students Moritaka Mashiro, the designer and enthusiast, and Akito Takagi, the screenwriter and opportunist, from their first winning competition to their flagship series adapted into an animated series.

If

does not avoid clichés, especially sexist with a promise of marriage as the primary motivation and female characters relegated to the background, it is also a didactic and dynamic invitation to discover the different stages and professions of the industry in general, and the publisher Shueisha and the magazine

in particular: mangakas of different generations, editorial managers or

, assistants, editors-in-chief…

We find an identical approach in

(Pika) but on the side of the competitor Kodansha and his

with the meeting between an editor and a young mangaka.

And a tendency towards sentimental comedy as always with Kouji Seo, author of

,

and

.

Immerse yourself behind the scenes of the manga industry with Reimp!

The first chapter is available for free➡️ https://t.co/QxqxJCSsIM pic.twitter.com/rDXEKtXXxY

- Glénat Manga 🔫 SAKAMOTO DAYS - APRIL 6 (@Glenat_Manga) October 11, 2021

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The middle of the manga, a setting for all kinds of stories

If you thought you knew everything about the profession and the environment, there will always be a manga to prove you wrong, like the recent 

by Naoko Mazda at Glénat, which aims to be a realistic dive into the world of Japanese publishing, "far from the clichés of

and the closed door between author and publisher", also with the importance of salespeople, graphic designers, booksellers, etc. .

The backstage of manga can also be "only" the setting for different stories, from the romance between a mangaka and her

in the shoujo

(Kurokawa) or between an editorial manager and his editor in the yaoi

(Asuka ) to this father who tries to hide from his daughter his job as a low-end mangaka in

(Vega) through this assistant who to survive financially must take another job: assassin.

He 's

at Omake Books.

The fantastic also invites itself to the drawing board, as in

by Harold Sakuishi at Delcourt, or the encounter between a mangaka and a medium, without forgetting

(Akata) with an improbable pitch: a Buddhist monk is reincarnated as a mangaka virgin who boasts of being able to draw any sex scene but loses his means in front of his new busty assistant.

You're not sure what you've read, you think it's an erotic manga, but you're way off.

Proof, once again, that with manga, anything is possible.

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The mangaka Kentaro Miura, author of the masterpiece "Berserk", died at 54

• Japan

• comics

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